Erik ten Hag - Manchester United manager

[CM]

We are in a hole but just wait til everyone is fit. No manager should be judged in the current hole this squad/board is in.

The same problems existed when other members of the squad were fit though. Varane, Shaw, Antony and Mount were all playing in the first couple of games and we were also abject in those matches. I think it's a bit fanciful to expect our fortunes to change when those players are back, but it's also not a sign of a great manager if he can't cope with a bit of adversity.

 

[OrcaFat]

To be honest, we could've kept Fred, signed a cheap keeper and blown the entire transfer budget on an Osimhen and been far better off for it.

Not really, to be honest.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

They are both short term fixes but I am not blaming ETH for that. We have seen that crap happening year after year with different managers

There were reputable reports he wanted Casemiro after De Jong was unattainable.

 

[the_cliff]

Like ETH but there is something not right with his tactical approach and he needs to revisit it.

Whether it’s going back to his fundamentals or sacrificing some of his key men, changes are needed.

I’m still hoping there is a Total Football manager in there somewhere. This transition football doesn’t look natural and it looks forced because of his key players. Bin them and play people that will allow team growth in what you know.

I think it's too late for that now. We have too many players not suited to possession football. Casemiro/Mount/Bruno/Rashford are all bad at ball retention and are more suited to transition play and the manager spent about 130 mill on 2 of them...

 

[OrcaFat]

I'm not sure how good De Zerbi is(if he got the job at a top club), but people comparing him to Potter are being disingenuous. They've gone up a level with De Zerbi.

Too early to say that. They were doing more than fine with Potter.

 

[3KDré]

Did ETH also ask us to rename the club to "Ajax United"?

The ironic thing is, he doesn't want to play Ajax football at United - which I would absolutely love to see.

 

[OrcaFat]

I think it's too late for that now. We have too many players not suited to possession football. Casemiro/Mount/Bruno/Rashford are all bad at ball retention and are more suited to transition play and the manager spent about 130 mill on 2 of them...

EtH said we are focusing on transition.

 

[Cassidy]

There were reputable reports he wanted Casemiro after De Jong was unattainable.

There were reputable reports the club was speaking to Casemiro months before he signed and he wanted them both

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Too early to say that. They were doing more than fine with Potter.

It's not early.

There's been plenty of games/data to suggest they've improved under De Zerbi.

Their xPTs was 4th in the league last season and will likely be thereabouts this season.

They were doing good with Potter, but they're doing even better now.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

There were reputable reports the club was speaking to Casemiro months before he signed and he wanted them both

That still disproves your point that he shouldn't be blamed for the Casemiro signing.

He wanted him. He got him in. And now it looks like Casemiro might be finished as a top level footballer.

 

[OrcaFat]

It's not early.

There's been plenty of games/data to suggest they've improved under De Zerbi.

Their xPTs was 4th in the league last season and will likely be thereabouts this season.

They were doing good with Potter, but they're doing even better now.

I don’t rush to judgment on these things. Give it a few more months.

 

[mu4c_20le]

I think it's too late for that now. We have too many players not suited to possession football. Casemiro/Mount/Bruno/Rashford are all bad at ball retention and are more suited to transition play and the manager spent about 130 mill on 2 of them...

LVG is back?

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

EtH said we are focusing on transition.

He didn't say that.

He said he wanted us to be the best transition team in the world. Liverpool(under Klopp at their apex) were an amazing transition team and still very good in possession.

City are exceptional in transition and the best possession team in the world.

You don't need a full XI of ball retention specialists to be great in possession.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I don’t rush to judgment on these things. Give it a few more months.

The data will still be similar by then.

They're not going to fall apart. If anything, they're trending up this season.

 

[Nicoseth]

That still disproves your point that he shouldn't be blamed for the Casemiro signing.

He wanted him. He got him in. And now it looks like Casemiro might be finished as a top level footballer.

God, how reactionary is that?! Casemiro is finished- seriously? Childish opinion. We're 5 games in.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

God, how reactionary is that?! Casemiro is finished- seriously? Childish opinion. We're 5 games in.

It's not 5 games lad.

Casemiro was trending downwards towards the end of last season.

And players can drop their level in the blink of an eye. We saw it with Ronaldo. We saw it with Rooney.

He's providing nothing at the moment and ETH seems hell-bent on using him as the deepest midfielder in build-up phases when he's not great there.

 

[kaku06]

Forget about patterns of play we still can’t play out from the back into his second season. That’s on him and raises serious question marks about his coaching ability.

 

[NZT-One]

There were lows and highs last season (the 7-0 defeat could have easily been a stackable offence), but I think he did an ok job last season, definitely passable. I do not think he was great last season, but it was kinda ok, maybe our third/fourth best season in post SAF era.

I think we have been genuinely terrible this season. We lost 3 matches that we deserved to loss, we won 2, one of which (Wolves) we deserved to loss. Could have easily been 5 defeats. We were awful in pre-season, and while that in isolation means feck all, it is a serious problem when we were shit on the last 3 months of last season, and we are even worse now.

After all this spending, you expect something more that this dogshit football we play. So yup, I think he should be in borrowed time by now.

I would agree with this statement at the end of last year. But taking pre-season and this season into account seems a bit unfair to me. The manager again is effected by how we've done our transfer business, he has to deal with the after effects of a superlong season with an international tournament squeezed in, he has disciplinary issues to deal with, he has injuries to deal with and he is trying to implement a new system. I am absolutely for criticizing the manager when it is due but acting as if he already wasted his chance is absolutely crazy. And it shows to a degree what is wrong about the club - some of the club figures and some of the fans seem to be entitled to think that the club just has to bring in a "good manager" and a few "good players" and we will suddenly be back at the top. We have sat on the sidelines of football developement for at least 6 years, our recruitment still looks suspect yet some on here think, that managers have to hit the ground running to justify their time at the sun that is Manchester United. It is absolutely crazy.

We have to keep him and we have to let him do what he thinks needs to be done. Even if that will make us end on 10th place. We can't buy anything for a 3rd or 4th as long as we are not progressing as a team. ETH might not have us on the shortest road or the most direct one but at least he is capable of having teams play semi-recent football. Bringing another guy in will reset everything. IF we had a continuety element within the football structure, I'd say maybe but we don't! And I for sure do not trust anybody within the club to bring in a better manager than ETH now. It would again be a waste of time and money.

The way back to success is blocked. It is blocked by the results of a lot of bad decisions in the past. We can't just try to shortcut this. We have to get rid of the barriers and if we have to ran through them head first, so be it. No matter if painful or not. Maybe even better because it might sort out a few of the more inpatient and clueless fans (and that is a general comment, not directed to you).

Ole was a better tactician than people give him credit for, we had a great record against the bigger teams under him, but teams that could sit back could completely nullify us. He was also heavily reliant on a few players, and ran them into the ground.

Ironically his football would be even more effective with Wenger's new offside rule.

However he wasn't ever going to be the man to transition us to a proactivefront-foot style of football. We have someone who seems capable of that now, and I agree we should give him a fair amount of time to try to see it through (which is multiple years).

He certainly was not. The one plan he had was being compact and try to break fast. Obviously bigger teams will try to dominate which played into our hands on a couple of occasions. Ole was NOT a good tactician at all. Stay deep and compact and break fast the easiest "tactic" in the world. Doesn't mean it doesn't give you results but if its all you can, you can't be considered a topclub.

This legend has to die.

The same problems existed when other members of the squad were fit though. Varane, Shaw, Antony and Mount were all playing in the first couple of games and we were also abject in those matches. I think it's a bit fanciful to expect our fortunes to change when those players are back, but it's also not a sign of a great manager if he can't cope with a bit of adversity.

We are trying to implement a new fecking system. Since forever, we have a manager who is about to implement something semi-recent - with a couple of players who seem to be as thick as it gets in terms of Football IQ. I think the praise for the manager last season was well over the moon but asking for his head and loudly questioning him is really the worst thing we can do.

 

[Lay]

God, how reactionary is that?! Casemiro is finished- seriously? Childish opinion. We're 5 games in.

It’s not reactionary. He looked past it last season too.

 

[redIndianDevil]

Forget about patterns of play we still can’t play out from the back into his second season. That’s on him and raises serious question marks about his coaching ability.

Exactly. How long do you need to get that working? It’s exactly the same as last season now with Onana. If he can’t fix that one single thing with a 50m keeper supposedly good with his feet, how are you going to fix the midfield and the attack.

 

[Nicoseth]

It's not 5 games lad.

Casemiro was trending downwards towards the end of last season.

And players can drop their level in the blink of an eye. We saw it with Ronaldo. We saw it with Rooney.

He's providing nothing at the moment and ETH seems hell-bent on using him as the deepest midfielder in build-up phases when he's not great there.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry but this is utter nonsense and symptomatic of the modern fan. Ronaldo, Rooney, Giggs and the rest had extended periods out of form in their time at United. Casemiro was fantastic for us last year and was a huge contributor to our successes. He's had a slow start this season but he's definitely not finished, imo.

 

[mu4c_20le]

It’s not reactionary. He looked past it last season too.

Signs were there, but he was important for us so there's no way to point that out without causing controversy.

We've seen it with Matic, question is, are we going to stubbornly hold into him for 4-5 years while ignoring the position.

 

[Nicoseth]

It’s not reactionary. He looked past it last season too.

Absolute nonsense.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Forget about patterns of play we still can’t play out from the back into his second season. That’s on him and raises serious question marks about his coaching ability.

I think there's been some progress in some games, but yeah I was expecting more.

How Brighton look playing out from the back compared to us is annoying. We seem to huff and puff our way, while they're far more coordinated.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Absolute nonsense.

If you want to ignore the signs, go for it.

 

[Lay]

Absolute nonsense.

It really isn’t. His performances dwindled after the initial honeymoon period. He looked gassed and was slow to react. His passing was also noticeably becoming more wayward.

You can see countless posts about it in his thread from last season or just rewatch the games.

 

[bosnian_red]

Alright having had the past 8 hours to stew over that shit show... while I do still firmly think he dropped the ball tactically today, I'll cut him slack with all the off pitch issues. It's an impossible situation unfortunately. And unfortunately, it might end up being his undoing. We'll see. Maybe we just stick with it through what will likely be a failure of a season given the constant shit show going on off the pitch, inevitably impacting on the pitch. Really need to see us commit to a chelsea style of u24 year old targets though for that. Love Casemiro, but a signing like him is a 1-3 year sort of guy. And our current issues lead me to think that cleaning out the rot will take longer now. Really it's actually not for sure known how long it'll take. The Glazers will surely eventually leave, right? Maybe then the cloud can be lifted and we can start having positive vibes again. That alone has a big impact, as it did for Newcastle.

 

[Garethw]

I’m not seeing any improvement at all.

All I see is ETH being tactically outclassed week after week.

I honestly think he’s lost the dressing room.

 

[CM]

We are trying to implement a new fecking system. Since forever, we have a manager who is about to implement something semi-recent - with a couple of players who seem to be as thick as it gets in terms of Football IQ. I think the praise for the manager last season was well over the moon but asking for his head and loudly questioning him is really the worst thing we can do.

The new system clearly isn't fit for purpose if it isn't tailored for the players Ten Hag has in front of him. I'm not asking for his head yet but we have to hold some kind of standards.

We're not talking about playing against great teams here either. Wolves at home, Spurs away, Forest and Brighton at home. These aren't teams we should be intimidated by and we haven't had one game yet where there isn't some level of concern about the performance or the result.

 

[fallengt]

Main issue for me though is we should really have someone in charge of transfers that is not the manager and not the useless bunch we already have at the club.

Rangnick worked for Red Bull. He surely had connections and could've recommended a few names. If only the club and manager hadn't been such arrogant fools and thought they got this figured it out.

 

[3KDré]

Exactly. How long do you need to get that working? It’s exactly the same as last season now with Onana. If he can’t fix that one single thing with a 50m keeper supposedly good with his feet, how are you going to fix the midfield and the attack.

Playing out from the back is not a single thing. It's the thing that teams practice more than anything else. Dunk said it recently and De Bruyne said they spend the majority of their sessions practicing it over and over again. Last season we tried to play out from the back with De Gea and abandoned that after 2 games. We went long most games. It's essentially something new for the team in this case.

 

[Cassidy]

Rangnick worked for Red Bull. He surely had connections and could've recommended a few names. If only the club and manager hadn't been such arrogant fools and thought they got this figured it out.

I suspect the club wanted him gone because he fell out with Rashford and Shaw and the priority was to protect asset value.

 

[sglowrider]

We lined up and were well drilled for the initial task we expected to face, same as against Spurs. All of Rashford, Højlund and the midfield did their jobs. Brighton were struggling to get out of their half. But once Brighton made a slight tactical switch, we didn’t change to combat that. That to me feel likes a managerial issue, rather than something I’d expect players to change themselves on the fly. The top coaches now regularly get their teams to adjust in-game and get tactical superiority.

I think the Ajax fans had the same concerns about ETH before he first got to United. Slow at making in-game changes.

 

[Nicoseth]

If you want to ignore the signs, go for it.

I'm not ignoring signs. I'm just not writing a player off too soon, which too many people on here seem only too happy to do.

 

[fallengt]

The ironic thing is, he doesn't want to play Ajax football at United - which I would absolutely love to see.

Gotta sell rashford & bruno for that to happens. But club will never do it.
He already realized that and double downed on quick transition route. But its not working either since our pressing in final third is very bad

 

[Widow]

Sorry but this is utter nonsense and symptomatic of the modern fan. Ronaldo, Rooney, Giggs and the rest had extended periods out of form in their time at United. Casemiro was fantastic for us last year and was a huge contributor to our successes. He's had a slow start this season but he's definitely not finished, imo.

Fan boy post!

Casa certainly isn't done but he can't do it week in week out at the top level anymore. He didn't look right after his suspension last year, he didn't seam to come back the same player.

The trouble is, he's another player with a fat contract so we need to play him.

 

[sglowrider]

The only joke is the level of excuses people have to go for this guy.

And for the record, does this guy even think of any other possible recruitment than from Netherlands or Ajax ? The club were right to turn him down.

He didn't get the Dutch version of Kath*. It would have been the game-changer.


* I’ve seen it all, I’ve won the lot, I’m Kath on reception and I’m never gonna stop

 

[Nicoseth]

I’m not seeing any improvement at all.

All I see is ETH being tactically outclassed week after week.

I honestly think he’s lost the dressing room.

Based on what? What shiny new toy do you want next then?

 

[Cassidy]

The only joke is the level of excuses people have to go for this guy.

And for the record, does this guy even think of any other possible recruitment than from Netherlands or Ajax ? The club were right to turn him down.

Casemiro
Hojlund

 

[Nicoseth]

Fan boy post!

Casa certainly isn't done but he can't do it week in week out at the top level anymore. He didn't look right after his suspension last year, he didn't seam to come back the same player.

The trouble is, he's another player with a fat contract so we need to play him.

What is this garbage? Fan boy? You mean supporting a player who was massively influential for us last year? Then I guess I'm a fan boy.